A Primer of Found Poetry
John Bevis
This sample chapter is available as a free download at www.johnbevis.com www.johnbevis.com
INDEX
What is found poetry 4
Types of found poem 1: Intact text 7 The prime poem Accidentals Translations The retrieved poem
Types of found poem 2: Selected text 14 Notes on the selection of text Single poetic source Multiple poetic source Single non-poetic source Multiple non-poetic source
Types of found poem 3: Adapted text 22 Hybrid Found format Analytic Synthetic Systemic Text and visuals
The Making of a Found Poem 29 The finding and the source Methods and the effects of poeticisation Change of context, change of meaning Provenance
The origins of Found Poetry 32
Some Found Poets and their practice 35
Epilogue 45
TYPES OF FOUND POEM 1: INTACT FOUND POEMS
I found the poems in the field, and only write them down. - John Clare
The first category to look at is those types of found poem in which the original text is retained whole. Wikipedia calls them ‘untreated;’ I prefer to use the word ‘intact.’
Opponents of the idea of found poetry will find most to object to in this category, and this may be a good place to consider the issues surrounding the legitimacy of the practice. They argue that the ‘found poet’ has done nothing more than append his or her name to the original thoughts and words of some other author, so that found poetry is nothing less than plagiarism. Marcus Bales put the objection succinctly in an online polemic about literary issues, Fighting Words 1 :
‘What is “found” in “found poetry” is nothing more than any good reader finds in any piece of writing, and that “finding” doesn’t justify trying to claim it as original work of the finder’s own.’
Bales tested the water in a series of spoof found poems based on text found ‘on the internet, in blogs, emails, bulletin boards, wherever’ which he edited, re-lineated, gave the title Found Poems and appended his own signature ‘in order to call into question the entire enterprise of “found poems” and “free verse”’. It is debatable whether this exercise has anything to do with the ‘enterprise’ of free verse, but on the subject of found poetry Bales had the frankness to publish the repudiation of the editor of Fighting Words , George Simmers, in this criticism of one of Bales’ cod found poems:
‘The virtues of this piece were there, I guess, in the original – unlike the sort of found poems that foregrounds things the original writer was not aware of.’
And this neat distinction is at the heart of the legitimate intact found poem – we are reading the original text through the sensibility of the poet , which makes us aware of hidden or unintended virtues. This is dealt with further in the chapter on the making of a found poem.
The prime poem
The result of a lucky find, where a written text has meanings beyond those intended, and which generally works in a poetic way, with perhaps some verbal dexterity for us to admire, or some intangible meaning for us to ponder, rather than – or as well as – being simply laugh-aloud funny. Jonathan Williams’ road sign is a good example, as is this, found in an index to CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and reproduced in the online magazine Take our Word For It: Sea water, see, Water, sea
This tidy offering, from Thomas A Clark, is titled From A Bookseller’s Catalogue:
“A HERB GARDEN. Loose sheets in folder. Edn. of 250 signed and numbered copies. Moschatel 1980. Mint.”
What’s refreshing about this is the happy way it reflects the poet’s concerns, published elsewhere in, for example, his poem Two Evergreen Horizons :
Neat Norwegian Horizon / Spruce Sad Scotch Horizon / Pine with that aspect of concrete poetry which attempts to treat with the individual word in the most apposite and poetic way.
Most instances of prime found poetry are from written sources, and are often printed as a facsimile of the original, or at least make typographical reference to the original. Non-visual sources are equally legitimate, and announcements, radio extracts, and snatches of overheard conversation may all prove fertile ground. The provenance of this example by Simon Cutts is given in its title, A note for Jonathan on his 50 th birthday, overheard on the Southampton to Cherbourg ferry
will all members of the High Wycombe Youth Orchestra
please meet their conductor outside
the sweet-shop on C deck
Some found poetry has a way of speaking bucket-loads about its original context as well as standing up in the new one. Look for the telling snippet of conversation, classified advert (the best-quoted being perhaps ‘ Encyclopaedia Britannica for sale. Not needed, owing to husband already knowing everything’), or signs such as this, spotted in the newsagent at Rosslare Harbour, 2002, by Erica van Horn: PROLONGED READING NOT APPRECIATED Accidentals
These usually rely for their effect on linguistic errors caused by misspelling or misuse of language through lack of thought or facility. Generally they don’t work as found poetry because the original purpose is already confused, and what is written or said is inadvertent. So the effect of putting ‘accidentals’ on a pedestal is less poetic than comical. Examples, usually from periodicals and the press, are often to be found quoted in satirical magazines, radio shows and Sunday supplements. This, from the p arish magazine of St Mary’s Church, Penzance, August 2006, was reprinted in The Guardian , 19 August 2006:
‘The magazine reported that at a recent choir concert, two members of the choir sang a duet – ‘The Lord Knows Why’. Thanks are due to the Vicar’s wife who laboured all evening on the piano which, as usual, fell upon her.’
There is a danger that finding amusement in quotations based on faulty syntax and vocabulary by those writing or speaking in something other than their first language can appear patronizing if not racist. But as long as we’re aware of the pitfalls, there’s fun to be had from the capricious linguistic mix-ups. Bill Bryson points up cultural confusions caused by the decorative use of a foreign language in Mother Tongue , with examples from Japan such as the shopping bag carrying the slogan ‘Switzerland – Seaside City’. Entertaining enough, but as this depends for its effect entirely on the relation to its original context, it makes for unsatisfactory found poetry. (Bryson, needless to say, makes no claims for any of his citations to be within the realm of poetry.)
There are, of course, exceptions. This is a classic from the late Stuart Mills:
Made in English Iron in wetness Washing will where the original context, a washing label on a garment of foreign origin, is evident. What distinguishes this from the two-dimensional incongruity of most of this genre is that the unintended meanings resound in their new context – what could be more natural than a poem ‘made in English’?
Translations
A related source is the bad translation, parodied by Monty Python in the spoof phrase book containing absurdities such as ‘My hovercraft is full of eels’. Automatic translation, available through, for example, Alta Vista’s Babel Fish Translation (babelfish.altavista.com), can be a source of unexpected linguistic delights, such as this from Paroles Francaises :
Eh well here is, Madam the Marchioness: Learning that it was ruined, Hardly was it rev' naked of its surprise That me sior the Marquis committed suicide And it is by collecting the shovel That it reversed all the candles Putting fire at all the castle Which was consumed upwards. The blowing wind on the fire Propagated it on the stable And thus in one moment One lives to perish your mare, But besides Madam the Marchioness, All is very well, all is very well!
There is a certain following for the garbled products of Babel Fish, which are usually achieved by translating a poem or phrase from one language into another, sometimes passing through a chain of translations before the final translation into the poet’s native tongue. One poet has dubbed this type of poem the ‘hyena’, after a mistranslation of Heinrich Heine. There is scope for much sport here, although the final result often includes clumsy and dull phrasing among the occasional treat such as this ‘hyena’ of the first line of Wordsworth’s Daffodils :
I have wrong, I eat a cloud
Sometimes better results are obtained by translating a poem in part rather than its entirety. Here is a composite ‘hyena’ of another single Wordsworth line, still just recognisable as the opening of On Westminster Bridge , translated from English to various other languages and back:
Dutch The ground has to not show - no matter what - more honestly German Mass does not have nothing to represent honestly Japanese Showing fairly with the earth there is no at all Korean To endurance correction being visible grandly anything boat song it is not Traditional Earth no demonstration fairly Chinese
In 1944 Stefan Themerson created the concept of Semantic Poetry in his novel Bayamus . ‘Semantic Poetry’s business’, he wrote, ‘was to translate poems not from one tongue into another but from a language composed of words so poetic that they had lost their impact, - into something that would give them a new meaning and flavour.’ This was to be achieved by ridding words of their different associations by exact definition, so that the word ‘war’, for example, would be replaced by ‘the open conflict between nations, or active international hostility carried on by force of arms’. The resulting poem would ‘stand the trial of time, of space, and of translation’. An example is this Semantic Poetry translation of Drinking Under the Moon by Li Po:
The fermented grape- juice among the reproductive parts of seed-plants
O! I’m conscious of my state of being isolated from others!
Ah! body attendant revolving keeping & shining on about 238,840 miles by the (mean) reflecting the light Earth aloof radiated by the sun
into my mouth I take & while expressing the hope for thy success. swallow the liquid
Another slant on the problem of faulty translation provided found material for the poem Go Litel Bok by Mark Haddon, which came about through ‘the unplanned absence of my designated translator one afternoon in Certaldo’. Haddon relates how, his own Italian being non-existent, an unfortunate bystander with serviceable English was press-ganged into the job. ‘We girded our loins and took a string of questions from the local press. It is entirely possible that I described my novel as a spanner made of toffee and said something offensive about the mayor's arse. It was not one of the high points of international cultural dialogue.’
The retrieved poem
The method of creating this kind of found poetry couldn’t be simpler: change the purpose of a poem simply by changing its context. In practice this usually means relishing the unintended effects of amateur poems found in the local press or club magazines, on scraps of paper inside second-hand books, etc. This example, from a local free paper in Tipperary, sets out to celebrate and promote a new restaurant. But in the event it is hard to know which is the more bewildering: the food, or the inexplicable antics of staff or guests. All this, in a tub-thumping music hall doggerel:
The Poppyfield opened up today The Clonmel Park Hotel All glass and concrete, air and light It looks it might do well Panfried chicken, bacon wrapped With creamy pepper sauce Wok fired veggie korma Flames to the roof of course Owen kept the fire going Lorraine did cash it up Tommy went off with my card Fiona mopped up a sup Lena and Marie her nice, nice niece Sat there looked very officious The Manager walked around and smiled This Grand Opening auspicious Glad I was there. Enjoyed the meal Can’t wait to come again More Veggie Korma in a wok And bacon wrapped fried hen.
The ultimate retrieved poem would of course be when one takes a poem written by somebody else, blocks out their name and inserts one’s own. This, the directly stolen poem, would appear to have no virtues. However, the fantasy that even this might be a legitimate exercise was raised by Jorge Luis Borges in Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote , a short story about a novelist wanting to compose not another Quixote, but the Quixote itself:
‘Needless to say, he never contemplated a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it. His admirable intention was to produce a few pages which would coincide – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes.’
And the twist here is that the language and ideas of the original were current in seventeenth century Spain. Those same words written new three hundred years later had to be read anew, as archaic and affected in style, and with their meaning slewed by the historic events, and changes in ways of thinking, of the intervening years.